Busted: 76ers’ Colangelo caught trolling

On Tuesday night, news broke that the Philadelphia 76ers will be signing Head Coach Brett Brown to a three-year extension. Brown will now be with the team moving forward.

But his boss, 76ers President of Basketball Operations Bryan Colangelo may not be around much longer. Colangelo, according to The Ringer, has been using social media burner accounts on Twitter to troll players and coaches, including Brown, his own coach.

The Ringer broke the story after multiple sources gave their writer information back in February to break this wide open.

The Twitter accounts criticized Joel Embiid and Markelle Fultz. It also gave sensitive information that only one on the inside would know.

According to Ben Detrick, who wrote the story for The Ringer, said he, along with the publication, have followed the accounts since February in an attempt to verify the claims. Besides criticizing Embiid and Fultz, and former player Jahlil Okafor, he allegedly debated the decisions for his own coaching staff.

He allegedly also criticized former Sixers general manager Sam Hinkie, who is credited with tanking for several years to give the team young talent for a promising future. The accounts also criticized Toronto Raptors president Masai Ujiri.

The burner accounts also allegedly telegraphed the trade between the 76ers and the Boston Celtics to acquire the No. 1 overall pick. That pick was used to draft Fultz, the former Washington Huskies point guard.

He allegedly used five burner accounts. One of those accounts was named “Eric Jr.” but its handle was @AlVic40117560. He also had another burner account at @phila1234567.

Other alleged burner accounts included HonestAbe/@Honesta34197118, Enoughunkownsources/ @Enoughunkownso1 and Still Balling/@s_bonhams. The Eric Jr. account was used between April 2016 through May 2017, according to The Ringer.

The HonestAbe and Enoughunkownsources accounts were active within the past five months. The Still Balling account was posting daily, according to the story, and last posted, as of last week.

According to the post, Colangelo admitted that @phila1234567 was his own burner account. However, he did not admit to knowing any of the other accounts.

The belief from the 76ers contact with The Ringer is that there may be an investigation into the accounts soon. If there is one, which could be announced soon, Colangelo could potentially lose his job over, especially he is found to have leaked sensitive information that only one on the inside would know.

That investigation, if it happens, could last several days. With this being an important off-season for the 76ers, the franchise cannot take any chances if Colangelo did this.